“Oh, so you’ve come at last, Mr. Vivian!  And pray what have you to say?  What about the rashes?  And what is this danger that threatens Mr. Sagittarius?”

“We’d better take the danger first, my dear,” said Mr. Sagittarius, with grave anxiety.

“Very well.  Not that it should be the most important to one who wears the toga virilibus!”

“True, my love.  Still, to take it first will clear the ground, I think, and set me more at ease.  Well, sir?”

Thus adjured, the Prophet resolved to make a clean breast of Sir Tiglath’s declarations, and he therefore replied,—­

“I thought it only right to wire to you as I did, having learnt that there is in London a gentleman, an eminent man, who has for five-and-forty years been seeking for Malkiel with the avowed intention of—­of—­”

“Oh what, sir, of what?” said Mr. Sagittarius with trembling lips.

“Of doing him violence,” replied the Prophet, impressively.

“What is the gent’s name?” said Mr. Sagittarius, in great agitation.

“His name! Nomen volens!” added Madame.

“That,” said the Prophet, “I prefer not to say at present.”

“But why should he desire to—?”

“Because you are a prophet.”

“There, Jupiter!” cried Madame, with flushed spitefulness.  “What have I always said!  All prophets are what they call outsiders—­hors d’oeuvres, neither more nor less.”

“I know, my love, I know.  But how should this gent recognise me for a prophet?  I’m sure my dress, my manner, are those of an outside broker, as I have often told you, Sophy.  How—­”

“The gentleman has not yet recognised you,” said the Prophet.  “At the moment he believes you to be an American syndicate.”

“Thank mercy!” ejaculated Mr. Sagittarius.

“But one can never tell,” added the Prophet.  “He might find out.”

“Nonsense!” cried Madame at this juncture.  “We might quite well have gone to the square yesterday as I always suspected.  But you are so timid, Jupiter. Timeo Dan—­Dan—­well, Dan something or other, as Virgil so truly says.”

“Cautious, Sophronia, only cautious, for your and the children’s sakes!”

“I call a man who’s afraid even when he’s passing everywhere as an American syndicate a cowardly custard,” rejoined Madame, who appeared to be suffering under that peculiar form of flushed irritability which is apt to follow on heavy thought, indulged in to excess in a recumbent position during the daytime.  “There, that’s settled.  So now let us get to business.  Kindly hand me your prophecy of last night, Mr. Vivian.”

The Prophet drew from a breast pocket a sheet or two of notepaper, on which he had dotted down, in prophetic form, the events of the night before.  Madame received it and continued,—­

“Before perusing this report, Mr. Vivian, I should wish to be made acquainted with those particulars.”